


You Named Us Kings and Queens But the World Brought Us to Our Knees (We Were Just Children)

by SingARecklessSerenade



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types, Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: But here have some:, Gen, I wrote this a long time ago and have been really reluctant to post it, Inspired by Fanfiction, Les Misérables References, More specifically Julius Caesar, Peter and Lucy are a Mess but they're Trying, References to Merlin (TV), References to Shakespeare, References to Supernatural (TV), Reincarnation, Sibling Bonding, The Lord of the Rings References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:40:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22080067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SingARecklessSerenade/pseuds/SingARecklessSerenade
Summary: Peter and Lucy have always been especially close. From the moment Lucy was born, Peter knew she washis. His to protect, his to confide in, his to love. Lucy seemed to return the sentiment in kind. The day before the Battle of Beruna, he learned why. Now, it's Lucy's turn.
Relationships: Lucy Pevensie & Peter Pevensie
Comments: 9
Kudos: 50





	You Named Us Kings and Queens But the World Brought Us to Our Knees (We Were Just Children)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Across the Lifetimes](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1138712) by [inmyownreality](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inmyownreality/pseuds/inmyownreality). 



> This fic was inspired by/based off the lovely [inmyownreality](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inmyownreality/pseuds/inmyownreality). Everyone should go read their soulmate fic linked above. This will certainly make sense without it, but it will give you context, and their fic is so dang good, you should not deprive yourself of it. Cool? Cool.

Mr. Tumnus steps away and Lucy continues to watch Aslan make his way across the beach, becoming smaller until he rounds the one of the cliffs and disappears from sight. She turns to head back in to the celebration when something over the water catches her eye. She squints, trying to make it out, and her vision goes white. There is a moment where she feels very removed from her body, but the impact of sitting down hard on the cement of the balcony jolts her back into herself.

Lucy barely has time to come catch her breath before Susan is crouched at her side, a hand on her shoulder.

“Lucy, are you alright? What happened?”

Lucy fumbles to respond. Every seems to be alright, but she can’t shake the feeling that _something_ happened. Something feels different, as if she is suddenly looking at the world through a pair of sunglasses or wearing a very heavy hat.

“I-I’m fine. I just—” Her words are cut off by the arrival of Peter. But it’s not Peter. Not really. Is it? She feels so confused. Surely, this is her brother in front of her. But there’s a part of her that suddenly wants to call him Arthur, to joke about heading out on a hunting trip. And another, more distant part, that wants to rage at him about a lifetime wasted over a loaf of bread. “Peter?”

~0~

Peter meets Lucy’s eyes as she gasps his name, and he has a sinking suspicion that she _knows_. He fights the nausea growing in his gut as he lowers himself down to her level. He had his Cascade during his talk with Aslan before the battle with the White Witch. At thirteen, he was exceptionally young to regain memories of his past lives. He wasn’t sure how he would have coped if Aslan hadn’t helped him through it. If Lucy just had her Cascade…

Gently, Peter reaches forward to take Lucy’s hand in his own. “Lu? Are you okay?”

She blinks a few times, like she’s trying to stop her tears, but all it does is cause them to fall down her cheeks. When she doesn’t answer his question, he uses the hand she’s not desperately gripping to wipe away her tears.

He takes a steadying breath. There’s really only one way to go about this, especially since the two of them are surrounded by so many people. Peter digs through his memories of their most recent life together—of prince and servant; King and Warlock—for something innocuous to ask. Hopefully, these memories will be closest to the surface for her.

“Lu, I need you to look at me.” Peter waits until Lucy meets his eyes. God, he hopes he’s wrong. “Can you tell me the definition of a clotpole?”

Peter ignores the puzzled look Susan sends him and focuses solely on Lucy. Her expression is confused for just a moment before her faced _crumples_. “Prince Arthur!” she all but wails, tears now pouring down her face. “Peter, what’s _happening_?”

And Peter feels his heart break for his little sister. It’s not supposed to happen like this. It’s supposed to wait until their _older_ , until they’re _alone_ , not surrounded by all these people. He leans forward and scoops her up into his arms, holding her as tightly to him as he can.

“Shh, Luce. It’ll be okay. I’ll explain as much as I can as soon as I can get you out of here okay?” he whispers into her hair. “Just hold on until I can get us out of here.” He looks around almost desperately at the crowd that has gathered around the newly crowned monarchs. When he sees that no help is coming, he does his best to lift Lucy, and once he’s sure he’s not going to drop her, he very deliberately makes his way toward the exit of the Great Hall.

He keeps his eyes forward, head held high, refusing to make eye contact with anyone. He has been crowned High King of these people; he must act like it, no matter how terrified he feels.

The crowd parts silently. Lucy is still sobbing. He walks forward.

~o~

Lucy doesn’t lift her head until she is set down on a bed. Her sobs have subsided, but she can feel them hovering just on the edge of her awareness. Peter—is he even Peter? this is so confusing—tries to pull away but she refuses to let go of him, so he settles himself beside her on the bed. Lucy looks up to try to meet his eyes. As many things as she doesn’t know right now, she knows him, and she wants him close.

His eyes are the same warm brown, and when he catches her looking, he smiles just the same. The special just-for-Lucy-smile he’s had for as long as she can remember. But, now that smile is inlayed over multiple other faces. All the faces are familiar and foreign at the same time, all with that exact same smile—all directed at her.

That image is an almost physically painful shock, and she hides her face in her brother’s chest again. “Peter?” she pleads, begging him to make sense of whatever it is that is happening to her.

His arms tighten around her “Oh, Lu.” She can feel his sigh as he shifts so that she’s sitting in his lap. “I’m so sorry this is happening now.” He sounds so sad when he next speaks, if Lucy were any more herself, she would tell him to stop just so he would never have to sound so heartbroken again. But as it is, she is too dazed—and too curious—to be moved by his sadness.

“It’s not supposed to happen until we’re grownups. It doesn’t usually. I think…” he trails off. “It happened for me when Aslan named me commander of his forces and told me I would be High King. Whatever causes this. Whatever does this to us, it waits until we’re grown up. When I was given command, Aslan said I was being recognized as an adult. That’s probably—That’s probably what happened to you too. You were crowned Queen. And queens are adults. Therefore, you’re an adult.”

They both let that statement hang in the air for a moment.

These concepts all feel too big for Lucy right now. She understands the individual words Peter is saying to her, but when she puts them all together, they aren’t making sense. And he’s still not telling her what exactly is going on. Her frustration is starting to outweigh her confusion. She shuffles around until she gets herself out of Peter’s lap so that she can look at him directly.

Lucy feels cold now that she’s no longer touching him, but she pushes that aside for now. She can find a blanket later. She wants answers now.

“Peter.” She stares at him until he meets her eyes. “What. Is. Going. On.”

Peter glances away, as if he can’t bear to look at her. “What do you know about reincarnation, Lu?”

The word resonates with something deep within her, but she doesn’t say anything, just continues to stare at Peter until he tells her what he knows.

“We’ve lived before. I don’t know how or why. But it’s always the two of us. You and me. Together. Sometimes we’re siblings; sometimes we’re best friends; sometimes we’re…something else.” He pauses here and she doesn’t press him to explain, the memory of satisfaction as her dagger met his flesh on the Senate floor fluttering sickeningly at the edges of her consciousness. “We always find each other. Usually we’re a lot older when we get our Cascades—that’s what it’s called when we regain our memories—and it makes a lot more sense. I guess- See, Aslan tried to explain a bit of it to me, but I was just as confused as you are now and—” he cuts himself off and runs his hands through his hair.

Lucy is starting to feel a bit steadier. Everything Peter is saying makes sense with the memories that are now in her head. She doesn’t know what to say though. She nods a bit, hoping that will encourage him to continue. It does.

“Aslan said something about how, the longer the memories sit in our consciousness, before our Cascades, the more time our brains have to get used to them? So, right now, for us, it’s so confusing because it’s so new, and we’re not ready, even though the Universe or whoever decided to do this to us thinks we’re adults…”

He trails off again, and this time, Lucy is content to let them sit. She processes what he told her. Her head feels heavy with the memories of what are apparently her past lives. Some are starting to make more sense than others. There was the one—maybe it was the most recent? it feels the clearest—where Peter doesn’t look too different; he was a king in that one too. She was a he then, her name—people called her Merlin. Further back, but also in a future, they were brothers who fought monsters together. That one was even possibly stranger, because she was the older sibling even if Peter was still the wise one.

There are more of them, pressing in on her, vying her attention. Her head is beginning to ache. She doesn’t know how to make them stop. She curls herself into a ball and presses her palms to her ears, as if that could somehow help. And then Peter starts to sing:

> _“The wind was on the withered heath,  
>  but in the forest stirred no leaf:  
>  there shadows lay by night and day,  
>  and dark things silent crept beneath.  
>  The wind came down from mountains cold,  
>  and like a tide it roared and rolled;  
>  the branches groaned, the forest moaned,  
>  and leaves were laid upon the mould...”_

Lucy recognizes the song from one their past lives but doesn’t try to place it. She simply listens to the melody and lets herself drift, letting her brother’s slightly offkey voice lull her into relaxation.

By the time the old ballad has reached its end, Lucy has become boneless on the bed, and Peter has begun stroking her hair. They sit in the quiet. Lucy tries to come to terms with what just happened. She doesn’t want to break the silence that’s wrapped around them, almost like a protective shield, but Aslan just crowned her Queen Lucy the Valiant, and she knows she can’t lose her courage now.

“Peter?” She whispers, hoping that keeping her question soft will somehow preserve the safety of the silence. It doesn’t.

“Yeah, Lu?” Peter’s answer isn’t a whisper. Lucy tries to take strength in his steadiness.

“What are we going to do?”

The hand stroking her hair pauses, then resumes.

“I don’t know.”

Lucy feels the ground fall out from under her. Peter _always_ knows what to do. She has so many questions and everything hurts—her head hurts and she feels sick to her stomach and mostly just wants to curl up and have another good cry. Part of her wants her mum but part of her just wants Peter and still another part of her wants to be left alone for the next three months. She doesn’t know what to do.

“I’m scared.” She admits, her voice small.

Peter doesn’t hesitate to reply. “I’m scared too.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you have a moment to throw a kudos or comment my way, I would greatly appreciate it! (But please be kind, I'm just here for fun. My day job involves enough concrit of writing) And I have a tumblr sideblog under this url if you want to yell about fandoms or writing =]


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